UN votes for a ceasefire in Gaza

An interesting vote just happened in the United Nations General Assembly. On a vote for a ceasefire in Gaza, as opposed to a temporary "humanitarian pause". 120 countries voted "for" and only 14 "against". The rest (45) abstained.

UPDATE

I should probably be more careful in my sources. The Messenger has now changed their article to read "humanitarian truce" rather than "ceasefire". The actual UN resolution calls for a vote on an "immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce". This is rather confusing language, somewhere between the generally-recognized designations of "ceasefire" and "humanitarian pause".

The Messenger gets a Mostly Factual review on Media Bias/Fact Check, which is probably not good enough. Although, to be fair, they did at least change the wording in the body of the article, even if not in the headline. And Israel's response to it still talks about a ceasefire: "We reject outright the UN General Assembly despicable call for a ceasefire".

It's interesting to see just who voted "against". There was Israel, of course, and there was the USA, which supports everything that Israel does, no questions asked (as I have investigated previously). Other than that, it's a rather motley collection of small states of little or no account, mainly from Eastern Europe and the deepest Pacific Ocean: Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and Tonga.

Canada abstained, which is maybe a surprise, given Justin Trudeau's pro-Israel rhetoric and Canada's tendency to move in lockstep with the US. (A Canadian-led attempt at adding in an amendment to the vote to condemn the "deliberate cruelty" of Hamas' initials attacks, to "unequivocally reject and condemn the attacks", and to call for the "immediate and unconditional" safe release of all hostages, was roundly defeated.) Australia, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and Ukraine also abstained, along with some other less influential states.

Everyone else voted for a ceasefire, including most of the Middle East (predictably), most of Africa, but also China, France, and a surprising number of other European countries. Here is the full list: